


Stress Fractures

by RunMarmiteRun



Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2020-04-07 19:47:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19091878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RunMarmiteRun/pseuds/RunMarmiteRun
Summary: You work hard, you play hard...you pronate your feet...medical issues when there’s no I in RICE and history doesn’t need to repeat itself...





	Stress Fractures

I braided my hair back, furiously combing it, trying to ignore my wrist throbbing and the large scrape on my entire forearm as I did so. Five had already headed out to the mess. She’d been reassigned as my new roommate after X. We’d been running hard after everything and then Janine with her stupid test of defensive structures where that new idiot Owen had gotten me knocked off a wall after trying to flirt with every female in the place. Worse than Simon.

By the time I emerged from the tent I could see Five practically hobbling across the way towards the rec area. Why she insisted on trying to work out when Maxine had put her on light duty and rest was beyond me. She had that look on her face though. I headed towards her, I wasn’t that hungry anyway because I hadn’t been running as many missions lately. “Five, wait, aren’t you supposed to be down?” Five gave me a look, then pointed at my arm. “Yeah, well, this is my arm. Not going to put me totally out of action if I do something to it. Didn’t Doc say you had a stress fracture or something and you were supposed to keep off your feet unless absolutely necessary for two days?”

Five shrugged, then kept moving. I fell in next to her, my taller frame making her seem even shorter and wider as she semi-hobbled. She was a little strange, but I liked her. The few times I’d gotten close to heart to heart conversation had been - enlightening. She had literally thrown a book at me a few months before. She’d been deeply reading it, then trying to do something with her hands, then making frustrated fists. I’d come up behind her. She’d been startled, and thrown the nearest thing at me. I dodged, mostly - had a nasty bruise on my shoulder because I moved my head out of the way - and had picked up a manual for BSL. She had taken it back, less than graciously, then thrown it across the rec room. Turned out she’d been frustrated and angry because she’d been trying to learn sign language and it wasn’t going well. As she scribbled to me in a note, she’d learned a few words back in second level at primary school and one of them was a swear. She’d thought it was her headmaster’s name because it’s what the one deaf mum in the village always signed when he turned his back. She wasn’t mute; the helo crash had damaged her tongue and jaw. The big scar across the left side of her face was partly cut and partially burns.

Now here we were, Five with her cropped off red hair and me with what Simon called “a rope I’d be glad to be tied up with anytime” hanging down my back, heading for a workout when there was no good reason. Why was I thinking about Simon? Sure, he was good looking, but an eejit who shouts “Here, zombie-wombies” is not exactly great boyfriend material even in an apocalypse. Although I’d never been one for things being long term. I got the feeling Five was more serious about relationships but I wasn’t necessarily sold on the idea of forming up bonds of any type now.

We were partway through some stretches when Maxine came through the rec room door. “What on earth? You two are meant to be resting! What’s the point of me assigning rest periods if you won’t take them?” I shrugged. “I’ve run with worse. Besides, someone needs to keep an eye on Five here. She’s liable to run herself into the ground.” I looked over. Five was making a face that told me she was in pain but she was still holding the stretch. Maxine sighed. “Both of you, come with me. We’re going to have a chat.”

We worked our way over toward the hospital. Maxine was shaking her head and muttering. Five looked ready to run except every few steps she’d drag her right leg and wince. Then she’d glare at me as if daring me to say something. It had to be a bad fracture for Five to wince that way. She was ridiculously tough.

Maxine sat us down in the random mismatched chairs that served as her office or consulting area or random game area on occasion. I could see the neat box of figurines and books stacked in a corner and at first I wondered if she was going to try to talk me into playing again. 

“Now, ladies - may I ask if either of you have had any type of romantic relationship that has become physical recently?” She looked very pointedly at Five. “Perhaps with someone here in the township? I’m asking for purely medical reasons, trust me.” I almost giggled. Really? Maxine was bringing us in on pretext of medical checkups to try to find out if Sam and Five were a couple yet? After that roundhouse followed by a kiss we’d all been taking bets, and then Sam had made his interesting speech at the battle - we did all want to know but this was taking things to an extreme, Doc. Then she looked at me. “36? Anyone special? I know there was a recent encounter with Si- someone - during the evening after you brought back those cases of tequila, but other than that have you been, um, actually physically intimate with anyone?” What? I didn’t even know what exactly had happened, X had said it had looked like I’d been making out but whoa, how deep in my cups had I been? Seeing the panic on my face, Doc backed up. “Physical intimacy’s not always, you know, full out. I’m just thinking that both of you have some tendencies that point to some issues that might be resolved easily if you let people in a little. I’m not a psychologist by any means but I’m what we have here.” By Freya, was Doc trying to counsel us? And about what, exactly?

I tried my best to keep my face neutral but Five was now staring at me. She knew about her dance serenade of Sam and well, odds are she hadn’t been quite as drunk as it had appeared at the time, possibly had just had enough to make her a little less constrained than usual which was why she’d spent about a week afterwards conscientiously going on supply and decoy runs, avoiding Sam at mess, and generally hiding from everyone. Apparently, though, she hadn’t realized I’d actually been soused and had gone after Simon while she was dancing in a Union Jack sombrero outside the comms shack to Despacito.

Maxine looked at both of us and sighed. “Fine. I’ll be, well, blunt. Both of you run and get an adrenaline high going from that as well as the usual endorphins from running. Five, you especially have a tendency to rush off into what others might consider suicide missions without much thought. I realize in part I may have contributed to the idea that you have to do that when you first arrived...” She looked away for a moment, then back at us both. “However, I must note that you’re both reasonably young women who must have certain urges. It’s perfectly natural to be attracted to others. Now both your medical histories have indicated heterosexual tendencies, but if that’s not the case and it’s other pent up issues...”

We were both frankly staring at her now. Five was looking almost angry. She grabbed for the notebook and pen lying on the repurposed end table and began frantically scribbling. I looked at Five, bent in the chair scribbling, then at Maxine looking concerned, then at my feet - and I suddenly couldn’t help it. I burst into laughter. Both of them stopped and stared at me. “Odin’s Eye...no, Loki’s Bollocks! You’re worried we’re trying to run so hard to burn up our pent up inhibitions? That’s hilarious! Oh, by all the gods!” I was laughing so hard I was starting to have tears run from my eyes. “Doc, I needed that! Laughter is the best medicine, right? You had me going! You’re such a joker!” I got up and headed for the door. “If I’m going to go satisfy my tremendous suppressed appetite for male company, I’d best go find Owen, he owes me for knocking me off the wall.” Still chuckling, I left the room.

I wandered around the township for several hours, helping here and there, careful not to overuse my arm. I had no idea what Five was up to. Hopefully she’d laughed off whatever that counseling attempt had been too. None of us were quite sane anymore anyway. Sure, Five looked old enough to want to be romantically involved...how old was she, anyway? Hard to tell with any of us now, I suppose, but she had to be at least in her mid twenties. I knew she liked children well enough, she was especially protective of that Molly child and had taught her the few signs she did know - including “unicorn” and the one swear. Molly did think the swear meant Simon. The rest of us had looked it up, though - apparently now many of the children besides Molly signed “arsehole” whenever they spoke to or about Simon. Five hadn’t progressed much with signing but that was largely due to frustration and a lack of time What with trying not to get killed by zombies. Me? I wasn’t lacking in male attention. I didn’t think so. Was I? I walked into the tent late that evening after sitting at the mess eating some kind of strange glop and paying more attention than I should to how Simon, Owen, even how Runner 7 were talking to me. Five had been absent. When I’d asked, someone said she’d spent a huge amount of time this afternoon chopping wood. There she was, sprawled on her cot, drifting off with headphones on her salvaged mobile phone, using precious battery power. For a moment it was strange seeing Five’s scarred face, pale in the half-light, instead of the dark outline of Elissa’s cornrows and the rest of her bundled in a blanket. Five lay literally as though she’d just leant back for a moment to pause and passed out. Looking near her hand, I saw that might have been the case. The battered notebook with cramped scrawls and notes was right next to her. Peering at it in the dim light from her music player, I saw one of those t charts for decisions scrawled there. At the top was simply “Tell Sam.”

I couldn’t help being nosy now. There were a lot of things I didn’t know about Five. One puzzle was why she was making charts like a business major, but the more pressing question was, what to tell Sam? Of course, I had an idea what that might be, especially given today’s conversation with Maxine. I squinted at the cramped writing. Under “pros” I saw that she’d written “would know if he felt the same,” and under “cons” she’d written “he might not feel the same” as well as “he might feel the same and love makes you weak, then neither of you could do whatever needs to be done; you’re likely the last of your family alive and you have only your honour left.” I looked over at Five again; I knew she took her job seriously but I didn’t realize she was so dedicated. This was almost frightening dedication, like the samurai feudal honour code we’d studied that one semester or some of the primitive warrior cultures some of the anthropology majors were always on about. If I was going to make it to Valhalla maybe I need a little more of Five’s drive. I happened to glance down at her music player. It was set on repeat- one song over and over.

I recognized the song. Not that I’d admit it but it was one I’d listened to when it was one of my ex-boyfriends’ favorite bands and he wouldn’t quit playing it all the time. To the point where even though I couldn’t hear it I knew the lyrics that were right now pulsing into Five’s ears...”Run fast for your mother, run fast for your father, run for your children, for your sisters and brothers, leave all your love and your loving behind you, you can’t carry it with you if you want to survive.” Freya, this was serious. She was smitten. Most of the rest of us were pretty sure Sam at least had a good crush on Five, maybe he just wasn’t quite ready to be in a relationship after Alice, but then again he was really a nerd and maybe waiting for her to make the first move. How is it that in the apocalypse I end up being the strange little matchmaker from Fiddler on the Roof?

I sighed and headed for the comms shack. That’s where he’d be, of course. Sam practically lived there. There was a betting pool that he had a Harry Potter cupboard. Surely enough, when I knocked, Sam’s cheerful muttering went to a “Haven’t got it quite ready yet, Jack - still can’t get these two frequencies to stop interfering. Come in and see if you like...” I stepped in. Sam looked up and then a quizzical expression crossed his face. “Uh, 36? Something happening? Janine sending you out or something? I thought you were on rest for a bit. Sorry, thought you were Jack, helping on something for the show.” I nodded, then sort of looked around. There was no way this wasn’t going to be awkward. Best just to get it over with. Five wasn’t going to say anything, so I would have to expedite things.

“Sam, we need to talk - about Five.” He turned in his chair, suddenly attentive. “She’s alright, isn’t she?” His eyes cut over, strangely, to the jumper with a half-mended sleeve laying across a random pile of things. His face changed, though - there was no doubt how he felt. And suddenly, I - I could face certain death with fifty zoms chasing me down an alley, or being cornered by some freak turned cannibal, or whatever - but this... “Well, yeah, Sam, she’s fine...” I wanted to add that she was currently chopping wood at furious rates and doing anything she could to avoid him just to make sure she didn’t betray her true feelings. “But you know, Doc pulled us in today and was kind of upset.” I wanted to find the words to let him know, hey, my roommate, the one who moved in because she’s the only one who could understand why I needed Elissa’s stuff to take up a third corner of the tent, the woman who’s saved us all so many times, she’s currently in the tent telling herself she can’t come let you know how she feels because it will make her weak. “Well, just wanted to let you know...”. Sam had a concerned, edgy look on his face and looked like he was about to come out of the chair. “Uh, Doc wants her to stay down. Things aren’t healed yet. So don’t let her talk you into letting her go on supply runs or you know, decoy missions or something till Doc says. Because she’ll probably try.” Relief washed over his face, and - was that pride? “Oh yeah, Five’s in good hands. I’ll be sure to check with Maxine before I raise the gates. Uh, let her know - that is, let Five know...”. Now Sam looked awkward. I waited, but it was hard for me; I wanted to shake him. Would he make this easier? Would he go ahead and at least admit how he felt to me? “He paused, then sort of like a shy teenager, mumbled, “Just let her know she should get some rest and if she wants to, you know, come see me...I’m here.” Making my way back toward the tent, I ran into Simon. “So, heard Owen bowled you over...over a wall. I’d love to get over or under anything with you, anytime you’d care to name.” He was so cheesy. I could swear he was even trying to flex neck muscles or something as he spoke. But then I thought of Sam, stumbling over words to a roommate of the woman he obviously wanted, and at least Simon was being pretty honest that he wanted my body. I grinned. “Well, maybe if you could ever catch me in a foot race we could sort out who comes up on top.” I did my best to sashay as I walked off. He wasn’t smooth or what I really wanted or needed, but hey, we were trying to make bedsheets into bandages in the infirmary and this was an apocalypse, after all. I mean, at least Simon had an interesting thing going on in that he was the only one with a sign language nickname. I giggled. I was tired, I’d done the best I could to repair all the stress fractures I’d found around Abel, and it was almost curfew.


End file.
